Elma Adair Thomas has been the WABDL secretary from 1996-2021. Elma graduated top of her class from John Burroughs High School in 1956. A lot of people might not know that Elma is by far, more than a secretary…. She in fact was a model, actress, singer, dancer, and teacher! She had the lead in the play “The King and I” at Occidental College in 1957 and modeled with Debbie Reynolds. She was offered movie contracts which she turned down because she wanted to pursue her dream of being a teacher. One of her fondest memories is eating lunch at the Warner Brothers Studio cafeteria. She remembers a time when she had been walking to her table in the cafeteria, when her string of pearls broke and scattered all over the floor! Sitting close by was the famous Robert Mitchum and Joel McCrea who helped her gather them up! Great memories!
Elma did fulfill her dream and became a Middle School and High School teacher from 1962-2001; teaching History, Literature, Speech, and Creative Writing to gifted and talented kids. She worked hard as a teacher and helped get many of her students enrolled in Ivy League Colleges. Although she was committed to being a teacher, she decided to also pursue acting again and joined the Community Theater in Bend, Oregon for 25 years.
Elma and I met in Honolulu in August of 1983 and were married in December of that year. She was the secretary for the Hawaii Record Breakers and Hawaii State Championships from 1984-1995. We lived in Honolulu until 1984, and then moved to Bend, Oregon. In 1994, Elma and I started doing meets full-time in 10 different locations in the Northwest and in 1997 we started WABDL. Without Elma’s help and hard work WABDL truly could not have grown to what it is today. Elma was present at all WABDL Worlds from 1997-2019, in addition to the two IPF National qualifiers in Portland in 1996 and 1997 that were the biggest bench press only contests in history- 256 lifters in 1996 and 267 lifters in 1997.
Elma has been an integral part of every single meet. She would work countless hours for the weeklong Worlds competition event held every year. Starting each day from weigh-ins, through scoring the meet, until the end of each meet day, sometimes ending the day at 2 a.m. in the morning. She built her own computer program from scratch to process, and score meets and perfected it to run meets without a hitch! No one could keep up with her! Up to the year of her retirement in 2021, Elma has provided support for over 440 meets not just the ones I put on but for numerous other meet directors.
I have directed a total of 388 meets from March 11, 1977, at the Turtle Bay Hilton on the North Shore of Oahu to WABDL Worlds at Bally’s Las Vegas in November of 2019 and Elma was present at 356 of these meets. In March 2020, Elma and I assisted Eddie Morgan with his meet in Jonesboro, AR and that was the last meet we both attended, we have continued to be the driving force for all meet preparations up until June 2021 when Elma retired.
Elma, I consider it an honor and a pleasure to have you be a part of this WABDL journey for 37 Years! Many memories, many crazy stories come to mind, but you had to be there to believe it! You have helped make WABDL possible, and I couldn’t have done it without you!
With Love and Aloha, Gus